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New turns in arctic winter tourism: Adventuring, romanticising and exoticising, and demasculinising nature?

This project qualitatively and quantitatively expores winter tourism developments in the Arctic from four thematic angles: 1. Winter tourism activities: soft and hard adventures 2. Finnmarksløpet and the Iditarod of Alaska: event tourism3. Hurtigruten: potentials and barriers in mass tourism developments4. Aurora Borealis: tourism performances and symbolic meanings. Winter adventure tourism activities like dog-sledding, off piste skiing and snowmobiling are connected to comprehensive and complex chan ges regarding technology, knowledge, risk assessment and accessibility that condition the development of market oriented core products of arctic winter tourism, thus an important area for research. Dogsledding races constitute relevant cases for exploring issues of product developments and creation of image and symbolism surrounding arctic winter tourism. As one of the strongest actors within tourism in North Norway, the question of how Hurtigruten spurs the recent growth in winter tourism makes up a part icularly relevant area for research. Similarly, Aurora Borealis, as perhaps the most important factor within arctic winter tourism requires attention due to the ways in which it materialises general challenges and possibilities related to product developm ent and issues of story-telling and staging of the North. This regionally situated research, conducted through interdisciplinary theories and strategies, support conceptual and theoretical development which take into consideration the particularity of how tourism evolves within this specific context. The research will also bring together local, regional and international tourism researchers, as well as engage private and public tourism stakeholders, thereby increasing the level of competence at HiF as wel l as provide knowledge which will benefit economic, political and administrative actors who work to develop winter tourism in accordance with values of economic, sociocultural and environmental sustainability.

Prosjektleder:
Bente Heimtun
Institusjon:
UoH-sektor/Høgskolen i Finnmark/Avdeling for nærings- og sosia
Aktivitetsnavn:
Strategiske høgskoleprogram
Prosjektstatus:
Bevilgning
Prosjektperiode:
01.04.2013 - 31.03.2016
Geografi:
Norge/FINNMARK/ALTA
Fagområder:
Samfunnsvitenskap/Tverr flerfag. innen samf.vit.
Prosjektnummer:
220925